Light up The Edge Prototyping

Order the following:

• cr2032 or similar cell batteries ~20

• masking tape

• clear sticky tape

• scissors

• string 1 roll

• drinking straws 1 pack

• 200gsm card x 10 A3

• cellophane (if possible, clear and coloured, or any small acrylic scraps you may have)

• textas / coloured markers

• hot glue

• moulding wire x 1 roll

Pre workshop:

• Setup the iPad so it can be used to post photographs to the Slack channel

• Make sure Slack is on my and Emma's mobile phone

1. Acknowledgement of country (6pm)

2. Who is everyone? (6.01pm)

a. What is your name, and what is your favourite food?

3. What we learned last week (6.06pm)

a. What is our design problem?

i. Encourage people to come into The Edge, perhaps take a selfie and discover something more?

ii. Design and build a light installation that is free standing

b. Light, shape, colour

c. Let's go through the visual diary

4. What are we doing today? (6.10pm)

a. Prototyping

i. Start with pen and paper, move to playing with shape and then light

ii. Play around with building some lights

iii. Mashup - bring some of the design elements together to come up with a few designs

5. Breaking the design apart:

a. Floor standing

b. Power of three - bottom, middle and top; or base, body and head. Keep this in mind over the next few activities. It'll help us to solve smaller problems rather than larger ones

6. Activity: draw the shape (6.15pm), quick you only have 30 seconds

a. Take a piece of paper and draw the outline of how you imagine the installation would look like (30 seconds)

b. Pass the paper to the left

c. Continue building and adding elements to the shape (30 seconds)

d. Pass the paper two people to the right

e. Continue building and adding elements to the shape (30 seconds)

f. Return the piece to the original person

g. Go around the room. What was the original shape you had in mind, and what happened to it? (5 mins max)

h. @Emma photograph each of the designs and post it to Slack

7. Activity: plasticine, card, string (6.30 - 6.45)

a. Form groups of three / three groups

b. Using plasticine, card, string and straws start to build a model of your design.

c. Reflect:

i. Place each model on a piece of card / paper and write out the responses to each question:

1. What do you like about each model?

2. Why do you think it works as a shape?

3. What single words would you use to describe each model / elements of the model? Use arrows to point to parts

d. @Emma Photograph the model and post it up to Slack

8. Break: grab a drink, eat some lollies, pick some lights for the next activity

9. Activity: reflect (7.00)

a. Circle the words that you think are important when thinking about the design problem, which is “How do we make something that will attract people inside The Edge,

to want to move closer to it and maybe take a selfie?”

10. Activity: filter (7.05)

a. In your groups pick the parts of each model that matches our design problem, and mash them together to create one new model

b. Refine it until you're happy

11. Activity: lighting (7.25)

a. Using the LEDs and batteries start lighting your model with different lights, take a bunch of photos and post them up to the Slack group

b. @Emma and Nathen photograph these iterations and post it to Slack.

12. Activity: materials (7.40)

a. Place the model in the middle of a piece of paper. Using arrows start suggesting the materials to use, choosing from: acrylic, wood, EL wire and RGB LED strips

13. Activity: voting (7.45)

a. Place the two models at the centre of the table and rate out of 5:

i. Overall design

ii. Potential for lighting

iii. Potential to attract people

14. Next week:

a. Some designs will be drawn up over the next few days considering all the work we produced tonight. We'll post these up onto Slack, along with a list of materials and get the team here at The Edge to start machining

b. We'll start building! We've got a bunch of EL wire and RGB LED tape on the way. There will be lots to do to put everything together, as well as deciding on where the lights go, what colour they should be, and deciding how often they change or move

Glass cutting component - Work with George help people make lead lighting designs for some shapes

Kaleidoscope component

- recap on where the group got to last week

- 30 sec drawing on white paper of the space that we are working with for light installation

- Pass the paper to the right. Now have 1 min to draw a light idea in the space

- pass the paper 2 places right to add to the drawing

- reflect on what has come back to you and share with the group

Using the straws, sticky tape, card etc the group will sculpt a shape by themselves. Then after a small amount of time bring an individual sculpture together with another one to see how they go together.

- come together as a group to chat about the prototypes that emerged and how we can move forward as a shared vision.

This part of the process is challenging to bring many ideas together into one idea to move forward. At this point we notice that participants often look to the facilitator to guide and cull ideas that do not serve what is being created.

Pre:

6 people signed up online. 9 actually attended.

Community Development

33% are not sure if they have a connection to The Edge

66% are in interested in design.

Post:

9 people attended (2 English as a second language, 5 women, 4 men)

1 person completed the survey

Community Development

Do you feel connected to The Edge community?

100% somewhat connected

Cultural participation

Did you feel engaged by the design session?

100% very much so

Community Development

Did you have a conversation with someone new?

100% very much so

Accessing Resources

very much felt the workshop was inclusive

100% very much so

Idea building

100% very much had new ideas

Comments

It was very generous and very interesting and enlightening to see the design notes-visual diary and his thought process that Nathan kept as he designed his upcoming installation at the Powerhouse. Thank you Nathan.